


Nakkalī

by Aelaer



Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Dogs, Fluff, Gen, Light Angst, Pets, Stephen Strange & Wong Friendship, Stephen Strange Bingo 2019, dogs are great
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-28
Updated: 2019-11-28
Packaged: 2021-02-18 06:44:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21590224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aelaer/pseuds/Aelaer
Summary: "What are you doing, Strange?"He looked up to meet Mordo. "Oh, uh, just—right before you met me a few weeks ago—just a couple minutes before, actually—I met this guy here. He had a sprained leg. Seems he's doing better now." Though the dog desperately needed a bath, and he was looking a little underweight…Mordo looked at the dog. "I know," was the surprising answer. "Let's go back to the compound."Stephen nodded and began to rise, and then the mutt pawed at him once more. Before he knew it, his mouth was talking ahead of his brain."Does Kamar-Taj have any policies on animals?"---Stephen adopts the dog from the deleted scene.
Comments: 22
Kudos: 82





	Nakkalī

**Author's Note:**

> I had my readers on tumblr vote on the one-shot I was going to write for my "fluff" square on my Stephen Strange bingo card. It was between Stephen adopting the dog he helped in the deleted scene in Doctor Strange and the Cloak having an adventure at the dry cleaners.
> 
> The dog won. Here is a story about Stephen and that dog. If you haven't seen the deleted scene in question, watch the clip before continuing. Enjoy the story!

Kathmandu was an interesting city; the modern West met the ancient East in everything that painted the metropolitan's personality. It was apparent from the traditional Nepali clothing worn with a pair of sneakers, to the impoverished holy men (Sadhus, he learned) sitting near the tourist traps of spiritual enlightenment easily bought by the wealth foreign visitors possessed. It was not something he really noticed when he first arrived, too focused on finding a sign that said "Kamar-Taj" amongst all the English-written advertisements for healing and personal growth.

Now though, weeks after coming to Nepal and just two days after his first successful use of magic (and a trip to Everest to boot), Stephen Strange couldn't _not_ notice the juxtaposition. It was both fascinating and odd, and even though most men in the city dressed in some form of Western clothing, there was enough differences with various peoples to make him feel that he didn't completely stick out in the white outfit all newcomers—novices—in Kamar-Taj wore.

He certainly blended in more than he ever would have in any city in the US.

He learned early on that the people in Kamar-Taj didn't often go out into the city. Disciples and masters would sometimes look for those who had heard of the miraculous refuge through rumor such as he had, or sometimes come across those who had potential and brought these lucky individuals back with them. Stephen had learned that many of the people who made up his current set of peers were just like him: hopeless and alone before being found by a member of Kamar-Taj and brought into the fold.

Today, though, today the head cook who made sure everyone in the compound was amply fed for the rather rigorous daily practices wanted local food and local spices. He had somehow corralled Mordo into doing the shopping. And then Mordo had asked him if he had been outside of Kamar-Taj since his arrival; at his negative response, he had conscripted him into service.

Stephen was a bit thankful for the opportunity, if only for the ability to see the world outside of Kamar-Taj, even if it was as strange a place as Kathmandu. But even then, everything felt different. It was as if there was the world before magic, then the world after. It painted the world over with another color, another perspective. The change in tone wasn't necessarily bad, it was just—different.

He and Mordo went from stall to stall in various parts of the city. He was able to hold onto a wide wicker basket with his forearms, so that became Stephen's job as Mordo put the lighter items in there and carried the heavier ones himself.

Stephen had noted with some surprise how badly the city infrastructure still fared a good sixteen months after the devastating earthquake that had hit Nepal, but he supposed most places in the world took time to rebuild. They came across the occasional rubble pile amidst the bustle of everyday life and he had to watch his feet for old detritus around those sites (putting it on top of everything else he needed to keep one eye on as they walked through the crowded streets).

It was in one of these rubble sites beside a half-collapsed building that he saw something most unexpected. He left Mordo to haggle with a local farmer and crossed the street to see if it really could be what he thought it was.

"Hey," he said softly towards the rubble. In response, a tail wagged and a shaggy, grimy mutt of about forty pounds padded closer to him. "You're not the same dog with the lame foot all those weeks ago, are you?" More tail thumping followed his question.

Well, there was one way to find out. The dog he helped had shown behavior he knew existed in family pets, but he hadn't known many (or well, any) wild strays to behave similarly. Stephen knelt, keeping the basket balanced on one knee with one hand. His other hand he held out, palm up.

The mutt crossed the remainder of the distance between them and lifted his paw to put into his hand.

Stephen grinned. "It _is_ you. I'm glad you're doing better." He let the paw drop and carefully felt around the joint of the dog's front left leg. "Feels like everything is all good with your leg. Put plenty of ice on it, did you?"

"What are you doing, Strange?"

He looked up to meet Mordo. "Oh, uh, just—right before you met me a few weeks ago—just a couple minutes before, actually—I met this guy here. He had a sprained leg. Seems he's doing better now." Though the dog desperately needed a bath, and he was looking a little underweight…

Mordo looked at the dog. "I know," was the surprising answer. "Let's go back to the compound."

Stephen nodded and began to rise, and then the mutt pawed at him once more. Before he knew it, his mouth was talking ahead of his brain.

"Does Kamar-Taj have any policies on animals?"

* * *

Two hours later, Stephen was in his room down to his undershirt and desperately trying to give the dog a bath.

There had barely been any convincing involved. Mordo tried to deter him for a minute before giving up and leaving it to the Ancient One. She had only asked one question.

"Why?"

Stephen shrugged. "He seemed… lost. And Kamar-Taj is a good place for lost people, at least."

She didn't react to that, but told him he would be expected to see to all the dog's needs and training. He had no problem with that.

So after convincing the cook to give him some scraps of meat for the dog's dinner (he'd figure out a more permanent solution to the food thing in the morning), he got an old-fashioned wash bin and borrowed some shampoo and a towel from the communal bathrooms. (He'd get proper dog items later. Surely there was something he could do here to earn some sort of stipend to buy the things he needed.)

For tonight, though, he was set on scrubbing away the filth that coated the dog.

"Stop fidgeting," Stephen muttered as the dog tried to get out of the wash bin again. "I promise you'll feel much better after this."

That didn't actually stop his fidgeting. Thankfully the dog didn't pull too hard against him, but there was little chance he would have managed it had he not tied a lead to him to keep him from jumping out of the bath.

It took three applications of shampoo to finally get his body clean. Stephen put a couple dabs of shampoo on a small wash towel and one shaky hand steadied the dog's head while the other carefully scrubbed the snout, forehead, ears, and cheeks.

"Good boy," he muttered as he washed off the last of the soap. "Feels a lot better, doesn't it?"

The dog shook the water off his fur and further soaked Stephen in reply.

After drying the dog thoroughly, Stephen took him to a bit of yard within the compound to do his business. The dog, at least, seemed to have some idea of what to do, or Stephen had just gotten lucky that he hadn't made a mess inside yet.

"It looks less like a mongrel," Mordo said in greeting as he walked up.

Stephen shrugged. "A wash can do wonders. He needs a trim, though. Or at least a brushing." He looked at Mordo. "Is there something I could do here to earn some sort of stipend? I need to buy supplies for him." He frowned. "Does Kathmandu _have_ pet supply stores?"

Mordo gave him a look. "Of course it does." He turned his gaze back to the dog and continued, "Books need constant repairing within the library. Wong might use your assistance."

"Repairing how?"

"Repairing the bindings." He looked at him knowingly. "It's primarily stitched with magic. Wong can show you the techniques. It will be a good lesson, and you can earn your stipend."

He frowned slightly to himself; he had only just figured out how to get a working portal two days ago, but in the forty-eight hours since the other exercises had been coming much more easily and with some success. And, well, he needed the money. "Okay, yeah, I'll ask him. Thanks."

Stephen only had his pillowcase to help make a bed for the dog and offered him that in a corner of the room. While the dog settled there, he kept his eyes upon him, and the dog's eyes were the last thing Stephen remembered seeing before falling asleep.

The next morning, Stephen found a pair of dog bowls and a small bag of dog food outside his door. And no matter who he asked, no one admitted to being the supplier.

* * *

"He's definitely part Irish Wolfhound," Stephen said. "His face is basically one hundred percent that. I think the other bit is part of a type of terrier. He has a bit of a shorter snout, and it would account for his smaller size, too."

Wong, as usual, didn't really offer much in conversation. He just slid over another stack of books to repair.

Stephen could hardly believe what only a week of practice made. He spent a couple hours each evening in the library repairing old books, and the clumsy, poor excuse for stitches were absent and replaced with the fine lines that nearly mirrored the stitches he did as a doctor. There were some parts of his fine motor control that weren't precise enough for the knots he wanted, so he needed to consider further ways to refine the work without such precise movement of his fingers.

He figured if a man with only one hand could do it, he certainly could.

"Have I told you that he's completely trained?" he continued, not letting the silence bother him. "Not one accident. I'm certain he was someone's pet at some point in time; it'd explain that and his comfort around people. I don't understand why anyone would abandon him—he has a very sweet temperament. He's better than half the dogs I ran into in New York."

Still no reply. Stephen glanced over; Wong didn't _appear_ annoyed (he thought), and he wasn't reading anything. Mordo just appeared amused when he talked about his dog, while Wong didn't appear as anything. The amusement was getting annoying, so Wong's stoic approach was preferable.

"I finally settled on a name, too," he added as he worked on the next book. "Figured since he's a Nepali dog that he should have a Nepali name."

Wong broke his poker face by raising a brow. "Do you speak Nepali?"

"No. That's what Google Translate is for. Besides, I'm still refining my Ancient Sanskrit, and that's taking entirely too long."

"You've been studying Sanskrit for a month."

"Yeah, and I still don't know every tenth word. It's annoying." He finished another magical knot with a bit of a frown. Still not quite what he was going for. "But that's off topic. I settled for नक्कली." He paused to carefully draw the letters of the Devanāgarī alphabet in the air with soft orange lines. "But I think I'm just going to go with the transliteration and spell it N-a-k-k-a-l-ī."

"So the dog's name is Shaggy."

"No, it's Nakkalī."

"That's what 'nakkalī' means."

Stephen shrugged. "Yeah, but Nakkalī sounds better. And the dog _is_ rather shaggy." He had plans to go out into Kathmandu and buy some grooming supplies to help with some of that tomorrow. Hopefully his stipend would cover whatever dog supplies cost in Kathmandu.

The next day, after figuring out where the nearest pet supply store was from Kamar-Taj, he discovered that the stipend more than covered the cost of pet supplies. Even with only working the few hours he did he was able to get another bag of dog food, a collar, a leash, a grooming kit, a couple small toys, and even a nice bottle of dog shampoo and still have plenty left over. Another week's worth of work and he'd be able to get that extra-large dog bed for Nakkalī.

His next break between lessons that afternoon saw Stephen spending the next two hours brushing Nakkalī down completely, trimming his nails, and snipping a couple errant hairs around his face so his vision wasn't so badly blocked. There were a couple half-hearted attempts to get away from the nail trimming, but otherwise Nakkalī was calm throughout the process.

He ran a shaky hand through the dog's fur as he finished. "You're looking very handsome, now, though still a little shaggy." He then scratched at his beard and muttered, "But not as shaggy as me."

Stephen frowned and glanced towards his very small vanity, which was basically a washbasin that had just enough room for the basic necessities, including a small electric razor.

Perhaps it was time he saw to his own grooming.

* * *

Nakkalī was a quiet but steady presence by his side as the months passed and as he quickly rose to apprentice, then disciple. Stephen liked the blue robes; they reminded him of blue scrubs, which were a silent reminder as to why he was here in the first place. He bought the dog a new blue collar and a small toy for the occasion (with the dog being much more interested in the toy than the collar, naturally).

He continued helping Wong out in the library, even though by that point he hardly needed to stitch book bindings together to practice magic. Still, he liked the movements that came with such magic, and the atmosphere of the library was nice, even though Nakkalī wasn't permitted within it.

(It wasn't because Wong disliked the dog, because Stephen had caught him giving the dog scratches and the occasional scrap of food on more than one occasion.)

Still, that meant Nakkalī wasn't with him when he let his curiosity get the best of him and snatched the Book of Cagliostro from where it was secured. It meant that he was safe from the complete chaos that followed in the next few hours (though at the end of those hours, time went on for weeks, months. Maybe longer. Maybe eternity, until time started to continue again).

And so it was when Mordo said farewell, when his heart grieved at the loss of the Ancient One, the departure of his mentor and friend, the aftermath of everything that had happened in the time loop, he only remembered that Nakkalī was still waiting for him when one of the dogs on the street barked just as they were about to enter the Hong Kong Sanctum.

"Nakkalī!" he said, stopping in his tracks. "Wong, is Kamar-Taj okay? Is Nakkalī okay?"

"They're both fine," Wong said, raising a hand to stop his worry. "Kamar-Taj was untouched other than the room that leads to the three Sanctums." He caught one of the apprentices and said something quickly in Cantonese to her. She shot Stephen a quick look, then nodded at Wong and hurried off. "There. She'll bring Nakkalī to New York."

Stephen's brow furrowed. "New York?"

Wong looked at him. "The Ancient One told us she made you Master of the Sanctum after you defended it, just before her death. Is this not true?"

He exhaled, long and low. "No, it's true. I had… it wasn't on my mind." Him killing a person was on his mind. Her death was on his mind. His death, again and again and again, was on his mind. Getting a promotion in the middle of it all had completely slipped his thoughts.

"Well," Wong said, "it is up to the Sanctum to decide if it accepts you, but I imagine that won't be an issue. Come on, let's get you settled. We'll deal with your account of everything that happened after you get some sleep. You look awful."

"Thanks Wong," he said as Wong made a portal within the foyer of the Hong Kong Sanctum to New York.

Wong was, of course, correct: the Sanctum accepted him right away. When the strange building set a cluster of new rooms for his quarters based on what it read off him, he was able to look at himself in a mirror in his rather lush bedroom and found that he looked particularly awful. Stephen tried to freshen himself up by taking a much-needed shower and getting himself into a clean pair of sleepwear, but it really didn't do the trick.

It was a look in his eyes, he decided, a haunted look that he wasn't quite able to banish.

Nakkalī had joined him sometime ago, and the dog was greatly enjoying the new digs, sniffing all the new smells the large set of rooms had to offer. He was especially fascinated by the Cloak (which was something to get used to) and was content to follow it at an easy pace around the room even as the garment tried to keep its distance from the animal.

Now usually Stephen had Nakkalī sleep in his dog bed on the floor, but the apprentice had only brought the dog and none of the dog's things, and tonight… tonight was different.

"Hey Nakkalī," he murmured as he sat on the bed. "Want to keep me company tonight?" Nakkalī tilted his head and trotted over, then sat down on the floor beside the bed. Stephen smiled. "You can come up here," he said, patting the mattress several times.

The dog didn't need anymore prompting; he jumped up and promptly went over to lick Stephen in thanks.

He brought his hands up and chuckled. "Okay, okay, yes, thank you."

But the licks didn't stop; rather they moved to his hands and like all of the dog's kisses, they were slow and careful.

"Thanks," he said again after a moment, voice low. "You're a good dog, Nakkalī."

He brought the covers over the both of them and Nakkalī settled his head against Stephen's chest, right at his heart. He offered him one last lick before fully relaxing.

"We're gonna be okay," he murmured. He stroked the dog's head in slow, steady motions. Despite the horrors still running through his head, the sound of the animal's breathing helped calm him. At some point he felt the Cloak lay itself on top of the duvet. All of that together helped stay his demons, and Stephen fell into a much-needed sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Thoughts, comments, etc appreciated.


End file.
